
Bertha Lincoln Heustis 










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PIETRO 


BY 


Serbia Lincoln Heustis 

II 



^RjSTOPjfER. 

[publishing 

HOUSE, 


BOSTON 






Copyright, igij by 

Thk Christopher Publishing House 
All Rights Reserved 


s/ 

©CI.A418061 

DEC !6 1915 

/ ’ 

V 



PIETRO 

lETRO ate and slept and dreamed in 
a desolate little garret up near the sky. 
He never thought of being a hero, in fact he 

5 


never thought much about heroes, but he 
dreamed — and dreamed. 

He came from the old country, Italy, not 
far from Messina, 

His father had died when Pietro was only 
a child. 

From his earliest boyhood his aim and am- 
bition had been to supply the needs and neces- 
sities of life for his mother and the old grand- 
mother, so they should never feel the lack of 
his father about the house, for Pietro ideal- 
ized his father and thought of him as one of 
the saints he gazed at so wonderingly in the 
big colored window of the church. 

Pietro was in love with Lucia, but she was 
an orphan and had no dowry except her 
beauty, her winsome smile, and merry laugh, 
and her devotion to Pietro, his mother, and 
the old grandmother. 

He never thought of any other girl as he 
did of lovely Lucia; and she saw no pleasure 
in any day that brought not her Pietro. They 

had always played together and as children 
6 


they roamed the hills and planned and 
dreamed of a future that was theirs in part- 
nership. 

The future seemed very dark in sunny Italy, 
but one day, after gathering the fuel and pre- 
paring and storing away the food for the 
Winter, Pietro listened to a fellow country- 
man who told of big fortunes easily made in 
that wonderful land across the sea — America. 

This countryman of 
Pietro’s induced a 
number of his associ- 
ates to accept of his 
aid in getting passage 
to the marvelous world 
of glittering possibili- 
ties, for strange to say, 
he was the agent of 
those who often gather 

Copyright by , « . 

Underwood & Underwood m young foreigners to 

bring them to Amer- 
ica. The law does not exactly allow this, but 
men, and even big companies, find a way to 

7 




Copyright by 

Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

evade the laws and it is in a measure a boon 

to those who wish to leave the old home foi 
8 


the new, and have not the necessary funds to 
make the change. 

After due delay, Pietro reached New York. 
Fate has many sides to its twistings and turn- 
ings, and the friendly agent fell into evil 
ways, and so Pietro was left, perhaps it was 
better so, to struggle all alone in his newly 
chosen homeland, for he knew not of the con- 
tract made for him. 

New York wasn’t at all like the place 
Pietro had pictured. He missed the sunny 
skies of Italy, for Pietro came in the early 
Winter and smoke from factories and chim- 
neys everywhere hid the sun, and soon snow 
came that covered all the grass and flowers, 
and festooned the bare branches of the cheer- 
less trees; but every one seemed too busy to 
bother with this poor heartsore, homesick boy 
from Italy. As cold as the frosty moonlit 
nights seemed all the hurrying crowds. There 
was no ease. 

Every one pushed and jostled and there 
was so much poverty, so little joy and happi- 

9 


ness, and Pietro hated to have his countrymen 
see or know of his misery and distress, for 
he was full of ambitious pride, and so he 
walked the streets until his shoes were thin 
and he was thin, looking for employment. 

He could not understand the strange Amer- 
ican language, but after many weeks of dis- 
appointments, Pietro was discovered. 

His constant wanderings about the city 
brought reward, for Pietro knew by hard 
experience his way about New York as well 
as if he was a native. 

He was proud to 
write to Lucia, and the 
mother and the old 
grandmother, telling 
them he was working 
for the great country 
of America. And then 
he told them of his uni- 
form. True, it was not 
gay like a soldier’s, but 

, . 1 j wx Copyright by 

hlS cap had letters on underwood & Underwood 

it. And it was much ^ • 

10 



grander to be a servant of America than to 
have a fruit-cart or be a peddler. He did not 
explain that he couldn’t sell anything as his 
purse had been too empty to buy and even 
one’s countrymen refuse to trust. 

Pietro failed to realize there was danger in 
his position. 

He drove a big wagon that rushed with 
clanging bell through many streets and devi- 
ous ways to homes of squalor or mansions of 
wealth. 



11 



12 


Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y 





Pietro from his seat often saw men carrying 
hurriedly and putting in the wagon, white- 
wrapped forms on stretchers, but he did not 
ask why. 

Proud indeed was Pietro to send his first 
gift of money back to Italy. Other similar 
offerings followed in rapid succession, for 
Pietro lived simply and denied himself every 
luxury. The deposits accumulated in his bank 
of happiness, and Lucia wrote that there 
would soon be enough laid by for all of them 
to come to beautiful America. She also wrote 
how lonely were the days without her hand- 
some lover, for Pietro was good to look upon. 

She wrote, too, of the long dreary evenings 
when they wished so much for him, and the 
sweet melodies he found hidden in the old 
violin. As he read, the tears shut out the 
words of the letter, as Pietro remembered the 
happy evenings when they were all together. 
The violin had been one the priest had given 
to him. How hard he had tried to play, and 
the good Father had shown him how to hold 

13 



the bow and the position for his hands so he 
could play the songs Lucia sang so sweetly. 
Now that was all over. The violin was no 


14 



longer his — for one cannot eat songs, nor will 
music take the place of fire when one is cold; 
and only too well did Pietro know that cold 
and hunger tear joy and happiness from the 
heart, and so he had to part with his dear violin 
when there was nothing to eat in the house. 

Then Pietro brushed away his tears to read 
his letter, and laughed merrily, for of course 
that was not the only violin in the whole big 
world, and some day he would play for his 
Lucia, if it would make her happier, and the 
waiting would only make the music and her 
songs the sweeter. 

One day, a dreadful day, a letter came tell- 
ing that the little store of money had been used 
to lay away the much beloved grandmother. 
Then began all over again the saving, the send- 
ing, and the accumulating. 

It takes a long while to make enough to 
bring two loved ones from Messina to Amer- 
ica, but Pietro sang and laughed, because the 
time was near when there would be enough to 
bring Lucia and the mother to their new home. 

15 


Then there came a day, as Pietro was wait- 
ing for orders, that a man in uniform — 
“Doctor” they called him, looked long and 
anxiously at Pietro — and then talked to an- 
other man in uniform, who also looked at 
Pietro, and then Pietro went on the boat, down 
the harbor. 



16 



It seemed a long and tiresome time to lie in 
bed surrounded by raving, dreadful-looking 
companions, but it was days before he learned 
that he was in the contagious hospital or Pest 
House, and that small pox was the trouble. 
He did not think much about it at the first, ex- 
cept that lying there so many weeks meant so 
much longer waiting for Lucia and the mother. 

Then came the day when the little steamer 
took him back to New York. On the boat he 
passed a mirror, and, glancing in, saw not the 
old Pietro he remembered, but a face grotesque 
with scars and streaks of red. It frightened 
him, and he thought of Lucia, who once had 
said that she never would have loved him if he 
had not been so handsome. The thought 
struck terror to his heart, and in place of re- 
turning to his lodgings he wandered about the 
streets. No one would give him employment, 
and so the old trials began over again. 

He who had been so happy was now forlorn. 
He slept in alley-ways, any place, ate any- 
where. After weeks of weary wanderings, his 

17 



small store of money all exhausted, he found 
work as night watchman for a street contractor. 

His pay was good, and soon he found he 
could sleep by day, and in the blackness of the 
night it little mattered how scarred and hideous 
was his face to passers-by. 

One night there was a fiesta near where he 
was watching, and as the merry-makers passed, 
he noticed his old landlady among the number. 
Falteringly and tremblingly, he spoke to her 
18 





and asked her of Pietro. She, never recogniz- 
ing him, said: 


19 



“Poor, poor Pietro, God rest his soul. How 
much happiness the good fellow missed! His 
mother and his promised wife came to my 
house almost the week he so suddenly disap- 
peared. His Lucia,” she said, “had saved a 
woman’s life, and for it the lady’s husband 
had given Lucia much money, so that she and 
Pietro’s mother could come to America to 
make a home with him.” 

“Where are they now?” Pietro asked. 

The woman, with a shrug and laugh, an- 
swered “How should I know? They took 
Pietro’s things and paid what he owed, but my 
house was not grand enough for them;” and 
she passed on with the rest of the merry- 
makers. 

Pietro dropped his head upon his hands and 
wept the whole night through. He trembled 
just to think of his Lucia so near and yet not 
to be with her, and then he trembled for fear 
she might discover him and his lost looks, for 
love he knew is sometimes killed by fright or 
shock, and children ran away from him. He 
20 


frightened them, and Lucia was little more 
than a child, so trusting, so lovable and sweet. 

The nights grew into months and years, and 
then one cold and blustering Christmas eve, 
when there was joy and merriment in all the 
hearts about him, Pietro sat and watched the 
piles of brick, stacks of iron, and heaps of 
sand, his regular companions, for he was still 
night watchman. 

Out of the peaceful stillness of the night he 
heard the warning sound that terrifies and 
grips many a stouter heart with fear and 
dread as a fire engine came tearing and rush- 
ing down the street. With that instinctive 
curiosity that impels one to follow after dread- 
ful things, Pietro joined the crowd that soon 
gathered near the burning tenement. 

He watched with horror, yet fascination, the 
removal of women, old men, and children, 
from the burning building. 

Pietro had learned a little English during 
the long nights of watching, when the police- 
men and other prowlers of the night would 

21 


stop to talk or warm their hands by his small 
fire. He heard a woman ask in hushed and 
frightened tones, “Did they get the old Dago 
woman and the girl out of the third story 
back? I ain’t seen ’em ’round.” Then some- 
thing gripped and clutched at Pietro’s heart. 
He hated to be called a “Dago,” for he was 
from Italy and not Dago-land. The thought 
seemed so hard that any one perhaps should 
speak of his Lucia and the mother as “Dago 
women,” and then the thought full fraught 
with terror fairly stunned him — what if they 
should be the “Dago women” in the third 
story back? 

To think was but to act with Pietro, for im- 
pulse is just as much as part of sunny Italy’s 
gift to her children as the merry laugh and 
cheery nature. So Pietro, without stopping to 
consider anything except that his life was 
so very little to anyone except the gruff con- 
tractor for whom he watched each night, 
dashed through the crowd and smoke, throw- 
ing off the detaining hands of firemen and on- 
22 


lookers and ran into the burning tenement and 
up to the already smoking stairs in leaps and 
bounds, until he reached the door of the third 
story back. 

The smoke was biting and his eyes were 
filled with tears, but when he opened cau- 
tiously the door he saw two figures, one sat 
huddled in a chair, while kneeling close beside 
with protecting arms enfolding her, was an- 
other. 

Taking off his coat, he threw it over the 
head of the woman in the chair, because she 
seemed so helpless, old, and bent, though he 
could not see her face. The woman on the 
street had said they were “Dago women,'’ so 
Pietro began speaking tenderly yet master- 
fully in the soft liquid tones of the homeland, 
tones that thrilled and gave courage to these 
poor panic-stricken ones. He caught at 
something on the nearby bed. It was a shawl, 
and tossing it to the kneeling woman, bade her 
cover her head and face closely, hold fast to 
his arm, to trust, and follow him. 


23 


Taking the woman from the chair in his 
arms, Pietro stumbled and almost fell, yet he 
held a guiding hand to the shawl-covered fig- 
ure who followed close after him. Down one 
flight in safety, then half way down the second, 
and the cruel red gleaming hungry flames 
came licking up, almost engulfing poor Pietro, 
but he kept thinking: “They might call my 
Lucia and my old mother Dago women, and 
I’ll save these women for their sakes.” 

There isn’t much more to tell. Pietro 
reached the street, a hero. The two women 
were miraculously unharmed, while Pietro’s 
hands and face had been burned by the searing 
flames. 

Pietro, though a hero, fainted. When the 
pain was eased, and while his face and arms 
were swathed in bandages which tender, pro- 
fessional hands had placed there, he thought 
he dreamed. 

It couldn’t be reality, that Lucia and the 
mother were beside him. It seemed as if 
Lucia’s dream spirit was caressing him and 
24 


telling him, with fond endearing words, how 
they had searched for him, watched for him, 
and waited. They had used the store of money 
they had brought, until necessity had com- 
pelled Lucia to work again at her fine knitting 
and the lace making, which Pietro had told her 
she should never have to do after she came to 
beautiful America, for she was to look into his 
eyes, and not at the bobbins and filmy threads 
of lace. Even the mother, to eke out existence, 
had made flowers for sale — flowers, such as 
she used to make to decorate the grotto of 
Pietro’s Patron Saint. 

He knew he must be dreaming, and the 
thoughts of Lucia helped him bear the long 
hours of waiting for recovery. 

As he remembered that last walk together, 
the very afternoon before he left his Italy — 
Lucia rested in their favorite place on the old 
wall, and he repeated his hopes and ambitions 
to her while she smilingly listened. Her dear 
hands stopped knitting; and as he told again 
and again of his love and plans that would 

25 



Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. 

surely come true, she told him how she pitied 
all other girls who had no handsome lover like 
her own dear one. 

26 



Pietro knew that it is a sad disgrace in Italy 
if a girl shall not marry, and would Lucia, 
believing him dead, perhaps sometime listen 
to Tonio, who had one time boasted that he 
“could marry any girl he chose — even Pietro’s 
Lucia.” No, no, Lucia would have none of 
them, for she was true, and had promised she 
would wed no one but her own Pietro. 

And he fancied that he heard a sweet voice 
whispering of love and hope, until one day 
came when Pietro knew that it was not a 
dream, but it was true. That Lucia and the 
mother dear were “the two Dago women” out 
of “the third story back” that he had saved. 

Then followed such delicious days of con- 
valescence when the doctors and nurses in the 
Hospital would allow his loved ones to make 
their visits. Then came the wretched thought 
and the horror of what Lucia would think 
when the kindly bandages which hid his loved 
ones from his sight and concealed his scarred 
and red-seamed face from them, should be re- 


27 


moved, and she would see his hideous face. 
What could he do ? What should he do ? 

One day they came while he was asleep, and 
as he wakened, he heard them softly talking 
and heard his Lucia say — “Why, Mother, with 
his scars and hums won in saving us he is far 
handsomer than he ever was at home, for every 
scar is just a mark or badge of heroism, and I 
love them every one.” 



Lucia isn’t making lace for sale now. Her 
last and most wonderful piece, which Pietro 
thinks is the most beautiful of all, was the 
christening robe for little Pietro, who was 
taken to the same church where Pietro and 
Lucia were wed — the Church of Our Lady of 
28 



Mt. Carmel, right up in the neighborhood 
where they live, on One Hundred and Fif- 
teenth street. 


29 



The mother, the old mother, made the most 
marvelous of lovely flowers, not for sale, but 
used to decorate the home for the Christening 
feast, which was a wonderful affair — and the 
baby was given such wonderful gifts by people 
who had read about his father’s heroism when 
he rescued “the two Dago women out of the 
third story back,” as it was told in all the great 
newspapers, for everyone to know about it. 

Outstretched helping hands, employment 
and sympathy awaited Pietro when he came 
from the Hospital, and even now his trials and 
heroism have not been forgotten. 



/ 


30 



The chief and firemen of the big engine were 
all at the Christening, and all promised to 
stand sponsors for little Pietro, and it was 
right they should, for the good priest said: 
“If it had not been for the fire, how would 
Pietro ever have found his Lucia and the little 
old mother in the third story back.” 





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